


Blood in the Breeze

by burning_arrow



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:31:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8473750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_arrow/pseuds/burning_arrow
Summary: Laura is busy with her post-graduation internship at a newspaper in London.  Carmilla is busy doing…well, Laura’s not sure because Carmilla keeps disappearing from their flat at odd hours.  Laura’s trying to be a patient and supportive girlfriend with the whole space-giving thing, but when an old friend shows up with news of grim supernatural goings-on Laura decides it might just be time to confront Carmilla and maybe, just maybe get the Scooby gang back together.





	1. In which Laura wishes she’d stayed asleep.

Laura whined as a thumping on the flat door dragged her out of a very pleasant dream consisting of a plate of creampuffs, a scantily clad Carmilla and activities that would make her blush if she were forced to admit to them in the light of day. She cracked one eye.  The numbers on the alarm clock swam a little before coalescing into numbers that looked suspiciously like 2:14.  She blinked hoping she’d misread them. 

Yep, definitely 2:14. And of course Carmilla’s side of the bed was empty.  Which probably meant Laura’s beautiful but disorganized girlfriend had forgotten her keys again.  Three years as a human and Carmilla still hadn’t adjusted to the idea that she couldn’t just use her vampiric strength to climb the drainpipe up the four stories and then pop in through the window.  That was problem number one.

Problem number two would be that this was the fourth night in three weeks that the ex-vampire had disappeared sometime after Laura had fallen asleep. Three years of loving and fighting had taught Laura that Carmilla would usually talk to her if she just gave her a little space to figure things out first, but this was getting ridiculous and not a little worrisome.  Sure, adjusting to the mortal coil had been a bit rough on Carmilla at first, but overall the last three years had been the best of Laura’s life, and she thought that was true for Carmilla too.  But as soon as they’d settled in London for Laura’s newspaper internship, Carmilla seemed to be doing her best impression of her former broody vampire self, minus the whole blood-sucking part of course… 

Another heavy knock on the door jerked Laura out of her sleep-fogged thoughts. Grumbling she threw back the covers and stumbled from the bedroom, not bothering to flick on the hall light.  She cursed when she stubbed her toe on one of Carmilla’s stray boats.  Half walking, half hopping she slid back the chain and clicked the lock open.  She grabbed the door knob and swung the door open, rubbing her eyes in the light spilling in from the building’s hall.

“Carm, I swear, this is the last-“

Laura’s complaint died in her throat.

“Kirsch?”

Baby blue eyes and a big goofy grin greeted Laura. She blinked stupidly at him.

“Hi, Laura! Um, so I know it’s way late and this is really uncool, but D-Bear was in trouble and I didn’t know where else to go, so yeah, we’re here.”

Laura’s mind finally started to process the sight before her. Kirsch had a bag slung over one shoulder and Danny Lawrence’s arm over the other.  Danny slouched against him, eyes glassy and a thin rivulet of blood dripping from the corner of her mouth. Danny, who she hadn’t seen since the pre-show before the final fight with the Dean, Inanna, whatever you wanted to call her.

“Danny?” Laura whispered.

“Hey, Laura,” rasped Danny.

Laura stared for a moment longer until she finally noticed the blood. Maybe her mind should have started with the blood, because there seemed to be an excessive amount of it seeping through the side of Danny’s torn shirt, and suddenly Laura was having flashbacks to watching Danny die once before and oh, this was so not good.

“Oh my god, Danny! You’re bleeding!”

“Yeah, kind of realized that, so can we maybe come in before I pass out in your hallway?” mocked Danny, though she gave Laura a crooked, weary smile. Laura couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Danny’s smile.

“Yes! Of course!  Yes! Come in! The living room is the first archway on the right.  Sit anywhere.  Can I get you anything? That’s a stupid question, forget it.  Towels – towels would be good,” Laura babbled.  “And bandages, alcohol – oh wait, infections aren’t really a problem are they?”

Laura practically jumped out of the way, waving her hand wildly for them to come in. As Kirsch guided Danny toward the living room, Laura stuck her head into the main hallway, taking a quick look around.  Seeing no one, she slammed the door shut and locked it. She followed the pair lamely down the hall and into the living room, not knowing quite what to do.  She hovered, feeling useless and not knowing if she should help Kirsch or not.  It’s not like she and Danny had parted under normal, friendly circumstances.

Danny groaned as Kirsch eased her onto the sofa and Laura spared a momentary thought of regret for the upholstery before refocusing on Danny and the very obvious wound on Danny’s abdomen. She was pretty sure she’d never seen that part of anyone’s insides before, and she’d dated a vampire.

“Calm down, Laura, I can practically hear you starting to hyperventilate over there. Vampire, remember?  It looks worse than it is, but I wouldn’t mind those towels you mentioned,” grunted Danny as she poked at a flap of skin on her stomach.  Bile rose in the back of Laura’s throat.

“Towels, right!”

Laura whirled around and practically ran to the linen closet, a thousand questions popping into her mind at once and tangling in a snarled mess. A headache started throbbing behind her eyes.  She raced back to the living room and dumped the towels in Danny’s lap, but not before noticing that Kirsch was drawing strange figures around the apartment door.  Taking a few deep breaths while trying to locate any sense of calm, Laura gaped at Danny as the vampire stuffed a towel against her side, wincing.  There seemed to be a traffic jam of words in her mouth, and she opened and shut her mouth a couple of times.  Finally a few managed to break loose, followed by a deluge of others.

“Danny, what is going on? Why are you hurt?  Why are you in London?  How did you even know where I live?  And what the hell is Kirsch doing out in the hallway? 

Danny chuckled. “Well, hello to you too.”

“Danny, I’m serious! I haven’t seen you in three years, and you just show up in the middle of the night with your intestines hanging out and Kirsch is scribbling weird symbols on my door frame – is that Aramaic by the way? – and I’m not even sure if you still want to kill me and Carmilla or not, so excuse me if I would like a little bit of an explanation,” Laura retorted, hands on her hips.

Danny’s head drooped a bit, casting her eyes down. “That’s fair I suppose.  Look, I’ll tell you what I can, but could we take care of the whole disembowelment thing first?”

Laura sighed. “Fine, but I’m holding you to that.”

She knelt awkwardly in front of Danny, grabbing another towel and using it to dab at an area the first towel didn’t cover. Up close she could see that there were about three or four long slashes instead of one wound.  The damage wasn’t quite as bad as she’d thought, but they still looked deep, and painful even for a vampire.

“Oh, Danny,” she breathed out.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had worse,” Danny hissed as Laura added pressure.

“And that’s reassuring,” mocked Laura. “You must be living quite the adventurous life since leaving Silas if this doesn’t even rank as moderately gruesome.”

“Now, I didn’t say that,” Danny griped, “just that this is a notch or two below my most hairy encounters.”

They lapsed into uncomfortable silence. Laura’s questions were multiplying like tribbles inside her skull, not the least of which was how she was going to explain any of this to Carmilla – and where the hell was Carmilla anyway?  Shouldn’t her girlfriend be helping her clean up this mess, or at least providing a bit of moral support for the fact that her sort-of-maybe-ex-slash-friend-turned-vampire was sitting injured in the living room bleeding on their new couch?  After a minute Laura leaned back and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.

“Look, the bleeding is already slowing up, but you’re probably going to need to drink some fresh blood to really start healing.” 

Kirsch’s head popped around the corner into the living room. “On it!”

He scrambled to the duffel he’d been carrying earlier. Two blood bags quickly appeared in his hands and he rushed over to the sofa, passing the first one to Danny.  She started sucking on it with a semi-indecent groan that had Laura blushing and looking away.  She’d forgotten just how much vampires loved their blood.

Laura glanced at Kirsch, trying to ignore the slurping sounds beside her, her face scrunched up in disgust.

“So, Kirsch, what are you doing here?”

“Uh, well, I’m Danny’s sidekick!” he grinned proudly, as if that explained absolutely anything at all.

Danny stopped sucking on her blood long enough to roll her eyes. “Kirsch, we talked about this.  You’re not my sidekick.  I’m not Wonder Woman or Black Widow, or whatever superhero you’re thinking of.  You’re my partner.”

“Yeah, exactly, like that Wilson dude is to Sherlock! I mean, I’ve even got his name.  Still seems side-kicky to me.  I mean you’re the one with all the mad private detective skills and all.”

Laura’s ears perked up, judiciously choosing to forgo comment on Kirsch’s mistake. “So wait, you’re all Angel Investigations now?  What happened to the ‘I’m all terrible. Fear me and run.’ schtick?”

Danny looked at Laura with an inscrutable expression. “A lot of things have happened since I saw you last.”

Laura snorted. “Apparently.  So Harry Dresden, what’s the deal?  I mean-”

“What the holy hell is this?!”

Laura practically jumped out of her skin as Carmilla’s voice boomed across the room. She twisted around so fast she fell off her knees and landed on her butt.  Her eyes started somewhere around Carmilla’s boots and worked their way up.  Carmilla’s feet were planted wide, her back rigid, and her hands balled into fists.  Laura couldn’t help but notice what looked like scratches across her knuckles, and was that green goo flecking her hands?  Then her eyes finished their trek upward and the black eye barely registered before she took in Carmilla’s expression.  Her girlfriend’s features were as dark as thunderheads and Laura was pretty sure if Carmilla had still been a vampire then something would be on fire right now, possibly her.

Oh crap.

Laura gave a little half wave from her spot on the rug and put on what she hoped was a soothing smile.

“Hi, Carm.”


	2. In which Danny and Carmilla both have a lot of explaining to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update. It is an offering so if/when I don't actually meet my self-imposed deadline of one every two weeks you will forgive me instead of throwing virtual mud, tears, and sharp objects at me.

“Would someone mind explaining to me why Agent Orange and the beefcake are parked on my couch at almost three in the morning?” growled Carmilla.  She stalked a couple steps farther into the room, her eyes narrowed.  She couldn't change into a cat anymore, but she still looked as if she was seconds away from arching her back and hissing.

“Hey!” cried Laura indignantly, “It’s our couch, thank you very much.”

At Carmilla’s withering glare, Laura shrugged sheepishly and continued, “Which is so not the point here. So, well…Danny’s injured.”

“I can see that,” replied Carmilla drily before her tone turned frosty, “but that doesn’t explain why Babyfangs is here in the first place. Or in London for that matter.  With Kirsch.”

“Oh please, you wish you were still half the vampire I am,” Danny shot back. Carmilla stiffened.  “My business is my own.  Besides, who are you to act all high and mighty when you’ve got the stink of goblin blood all over you?”

“Goblin blood?” Laura’s eyes went wide as they flicked back to Carmilla’s fists smattered with green. “Carm, what did you do?”

Carmilla looked caught off guard for a second before crossing her arms and tucking her hands in her armpits. She lifted her chin in defiance.  “Still not the point right now, Xena.  Last I heard you were still in Spain somewhere.  What the hell are you doing here?”

Danny started to utter what probably would have been a thrilling comeback, but Laura’s patience chose that moment to snap.

“Stop it, both of you!”

Shoving herself off the floor with a huff, Laura moved between the two women, breaking their line of sight in what was turning into an epic glare fest. Kirsch looked like he wanted to sink into the cushions.

 “One mystery at a time,” Laura demanded, her hands waving about emphatically.  She spun toward Danny.  “Look, your business became ours when you showed up bleeding on our doorstep and you promised me you’d spill if I helped you.”

“And you! Before you get all smug thinking you’re off the hook,” she growled as she turned on Carmilla with a pointed finger.  Carmilla’s smirk melted away and she had the good grace to look somewhat abashed.  “I will not forget that you’ve been sneaking out and that apparently you’ve decided goblin blood makes a great new hand lotion.  Not to mention the fact that you’ve been tracking Danny’s movements across Europe without telling me.  Consider this a temporary respite only!”

Carmilla opened her mouth.

“Ah! Look at this face!  You know this face.”

Carmilla promptly closed her mouth.

Taking a very deep breath and then slowly letting it out, Laura tried to relax the knot she could feel forming in her neck. She thought longingly of her nice, warm, lonely bed before pushing the image aside for the business at hand.

“Alright then. Danny, why don’t you start by telling us why you and Kirsch are in London?”

“Look, before the twenty questions begin, I do have one important thing to point out,” said Carmilla.

“Carm, don’t start,” warned Laura.

“Hey, I just want to know why someone put up a protection spell without bothering with the concealment charm,” Carmilla shot back, throwing her hands up defensively.

Danny and Kirsch looked at each other in confusion.

“Oh, for love of – you two do know that if put up a protection spell you also need an accompanying concealment charm? Otherwise you might as well be putting up a day glo sign that says ‘Magic is being done here’.  I mean maybe the wards will hold, but if you’re running from something, this is a really good way to let it know you’re here.”

Danny grimaced and Kirsch scratched his head while his brow knit together.

“I may be human again, but you two are children. I can’t believe you dimwits survived this long without Mother’s protection.”  Carmilla shook her head in exasperation.

“Don’t you dare mention that hag to me!” Danny tried to leap up from the couch, only to collapse back onto the cushions with a loud moan. She settled for a look that contained a truly disturbing level of violence.  Kirsch rushed to her side with the second blood bag, which she snatched out of his hands, tearing into it greedily.

“Carm, maybe make with more helping and less insulting,” remarked Laura.

“Fine,” answered Carmilla with a sigh. Glancing at Kirsch she held out her hand.  “Where’s your charcoal and wormwood?”

Two minutes and a few choice phrases from Carmilla later, they were all back in the living room, Kirsch and Danny still on the now partially red sofa, Carmilla perched tensely on the edge of her favorite reading chair and Laura sitting cross legged on the floor close by, her hand absently stroking Carmilla’s calf. Danny was the first to interrupt the awkward silence.

“Look, I know I had no right to show up here-“

“Damn right,” muttered Carmilla.

“-but I didn’t come to London expecting this. I’m on a case.  I was supposed to be in and out before either of you even knew I was here.  But everything went sideways and I didn’t know where else to go.”

“What kind of case?” Laura asked, her journalistic drive kicking into high gear. Beside her Carmilla sighed.  Well, let her sigh, this was the most interesting thing that had happened to Laura since leaving Silas, and now that she was actually awake and Danny was no longer in imminent danger she wanted to hear everything.  The internship at the paper wasn’t exactly all she’d imagined – somehow attending local council meetings about sanitation issues just didn’t have the same thrill as digging into the latest occult phenomena that was daily life at Silas.

“A contact of mine from Scotland Yard passed on some info about some murders that he thought were more hinky than their usual human-induced kind,” replied Danny. She glanced at Kirsch who dove for the duffel bag again, this time dragging out a couple of files and an odd metallic cylinder.  Before Laura could inquire about the cylinder, Danny opened one of the folders and thrust it toward her and Carmilla.

Laura took the folder while Carmilla looked at Danny incredulously, an eyebrow cocked. “ _You_ have a contact at Scotland Yard?”

“I saved the Inspector from an infestation of pixies up in Wales last year. God, I hate pixies,” said Danny, shivering at the memory.  “Anyway, he doesn’t know about, you know, the whole vampire thing, but he gets that I handle things that are outside the normal police jurisdiction.”

“Well, aren’t you turning into the Dick Tracy of the supernatural world,” drawled Carmilla sarcastically.

Laura barely heard the exchange, too transfixed by the folder’s contents. She swallowed as she slowly leafed through photo after photo from multiple murders.  She could easily tell why this wasn’t the Yard’s usual cup of tea.  The pale, bloodless skin and punctured necks stood out immediately.  She flipped to the last few photos.  While the last two victims shared the same pallor as the first five, their wounds were on the wrists instead, with multiple sets of punctures leading up the forearm, like they’d been bled multiple times before being killed, not just sucked clean like the others. 

Carmilla sucked in a sharp breath, and when Laura turned to her, she was almost as pale as the victims in the pictures. Her mouth hung slightly open and her eyes looked haunted.

Laura placed a gentle hand on her girlfriend’s knee. “Carm?”

Carmilla jumped as if waking from a dream. “Sorry, cutie, just old memories.”

“What about?” Laura asked, wrinkling her brow.

“Nothing worth revisiting,” Carmilla said, giving Laura a half-smile that didn’t even remotely reach her eyes. She turned her attention from Laura to Danny, cutting off any further questions.  “So vampire, of course.”

Kirsch jumped in excitedly from Danny’s side, “That’s what we thought too! Except then more bodies were found and things got weird.”

“Weird how?” questioned Laura with one last glance at Carmilla. The dark-haired girl had slumped back into her chair, her expression neutral once again except for the tightness around the corners of her mouth.

“That folder,” Danny said, pointing to Laura’s lap, “contains photos of the murders that happened before I got to London. There’s been five more since.  Two are pretty much the same deal, but three of them are completely different.”

Danny handed them another folder. Laura cringed as soon as she opened it.

“Oh, gross!”

“They look like they’ve been torn apart. Whatever it was pulled the heads clean off,” commented Carmilla leaning forward again to take in the pictures.

“Yep, and that’s not the weirdest part. All three victims were vampires,” replied Danny.

“No way!” exclaimed Laura. She looked between Danny and Carmilla and back again in alarm.  “What could do that to a vampire?”

Danny shrugged and Carmilla responded with a noncommittal grunt, studying the photos with intensity. After a couple of seconds she gazed back at Danny.  “Some of these wounds look a hell of a lot like yours, Carrot Top.”

Danny scrubbed a hand over her face. “Yeah, don’t remind me.  I still don’t know what did this.” 

Carmilla and Laura stared at her in disbelief. Danny blew out a loud breath before continuing.

“Earlier this evening Kirsch and I were returning to the flat we’d rented for a couple of weeks while we try to sort this thing out. We’d been trying to chase down leads - without much success I might add – and we’d called it quits for the night.  All I know is I walked into the kitchen, caught sight of this weird container, “ Danny tossed the silver cylinder to Carmilla, “and then bam, I’m getting tossed into the fridge door by something invisible.”

Kirsch jumped in, “It was crazy! I heard D-Bear yell from the other room and I came rushing in and there’s just stuff flying everywhere.  I mean Danny was punching and kicking but, seriously, it didn’t matter.   That thing was like wham! Pow! Splat!” 

Danny grimaced, “Yeah, that would be about the time this thing body slammed me on the table and decided to decorate the kitchen with my guts. I don’t know what the hell happened, but Kirsch here picked up a fry pan from the stove - you know, one of those heavy cast iron ones – and he starts swinging like A-Rod swinging for the back wall.”

“Please tell me Kirsch’s sports metaphors aren’t contagious. Because otherwise you two are definitely back on the street tonight,” said Carmilla drily.  Laura elbowed her leg while Danny gave her another glare.

“Anyway, it must of done something because all of the sudden I’m free and there’s howling everywhere, like we were standing in the middle of a jet turbine.   I grabbed that container and we just got the hell out of there.  Well, after meathead here decided to add condiments to the full frontal assault,” finished Danny.

“It really didn’t like the salt more some reason, ‘cause the howling got way worse after that,” Kirsch piped in.

“Well, kiddies, you seem to have tangled with a poltergeist. And I don’t mean the relatively harmless Peeves-pranking-Hogwarts kind, I mean the full blown who you gonna call malevolent spirit kind,” replied Carmilla without hesitation.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” started Danny.

“I think its behavior as well as its reaction to iron and salt are pretty definitive,” Carmilla fired back.

Danny growled, “I get that. What I mean is that I rented this place knowing it was clean, and then cleansed it again when I got here just to be sure.  There’s no way a poltergeist should be anywhere near that place.  Besides, it’s not like they can just relocate at will.”

“And we’re sure the place was clean, because clearly your grasp on magic is unquestionable,” Carmilla bit out, motioning sharply in the direction of the front door.

“I may still be learning, but it’s not like I’ve been sitting on my hands reading fairytales for the last three years, you know,” Danny said angrily, her voice rising.

“Guys-,” said Laura.

Carmilla sprang up, glowering down at Danny. “You’d be better off reading fairytales than messing with things you know nothing about!”

Danny managed to struggle to her feet, still clasping a towel to her side, but looking threatening nonetheless.

Kirsch looked pleadingly at his friend. “D-Bear, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you-“

“Oh, this sounds familiar! Didn’t you pretty much give us all the same speech when you first arrived at Silas?  The great and wise Carmilla deigning to take pity on us poor children.  Too bad you don’t have the fangs to back it up now, _cupcake_ ” Danny mocked.

“Why you stupid, inept, bumbling hero-wannabe…”

Kirsch jumped between the two women, holding up both his hands. “Beautiful ladies, maybe let’s not fight.”

Laura got to her feet with every intention of joining Kirsch, or rescuing him, she wasn’t sure, but at that moment a loud crash echoed through the apartment and two figures lumbered into the living room. All heads whipped around to take in the newcomers.  One was beyond tall, vaguely resembling a living mountain in Laura’s mind, the other was a good few inches shorter than Laura.  Both were green skinned, with pointed ears and sharp crooked teeth on display with their grotesque smiles.  The shorter one had a busted lip, a black (green?) eye, and a noticeable limp.

“Would somebody please tell me what those are?” Laura croaked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Goblins,” Carmilla said darkly.

“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say,” Laura squeaked.

“That’s the one,” grunted the smaller goblin to his companion, pointing straight at Carmilla.

Utter chaos broke loose as the tall goblin lunged forward. Carmilla shoved Laura back into reading chair, while Kirsch let loose a cry and sprang on the smaller goblin.  Dropping her towel, Danny lashed out at the big goblin but the beast simply took the hit on his shoulder and punched out with a fist the size of brick, hitting Danny right in the gut where she was already wounded.  She gasped and went down on one knee clutching her side.  Kirsch meanwhile was discovering that even a short, injured goblin is several times stronger than the average human, even one as buff as a former Zeta bro.  He yelled as the goblin spun him around and around like a rag doll.

Carmilla tried to use the distraction of both the goblins to her advantage, grabbing the poker from the fireplace and clocking the larger one in the back of the head. The poker came away slick with green blood and for a moment the goblin swayed on his feet, stunned.  Then he shook his head and backhanded the former vampire, sending her halfway across the room.

“Carm!” yelped Laura, finally disentangling herself from the furniture. She rushed forward to go to Carmilla when a huge fist caught her around the neck and lifted her high in the air.  Maybe ignoring the very large, very angry goblin while rushing to aid her lover hadn’t been the brightest idea, Laura thought dimly as the air was squeezed from her.  Then there was a sickening series of cracks and squishes.  Hot liquid splashed her face and Laura dropped to the ground.

Looking up she could see a hand protruding from the goblin’s chest, covered in gore and holding what Laura presumed was the goblin’s heart. She could see Danny’s sneakers between the goblins legs.

With a small cry Laura scuttled out of the way as the hand withdrew and the goblin’s body tottered forward, landing on the carpet with a thump.   Laura glanced up in time to watch Danny snap the neck of the smaller goblin, rescuing Kirsch who was by now very green himself.

“Laura!” Carmilla cried as she scrambled across the floor. Carmilla’s hands were everywhere, checking her neck, grasping her shoulders, cupping her cheeks.  Carmilla’s eyes were wide with worry.  “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine, I promise,” Laura soothed, grasping Carmilla’s hands to still their anxious motions. She frowned as she glanced around.  “I don’t think we’re ever going to get the deposit back on this place, though.”

Carmilla let out a wet chuckle. A shadow fell over both of them as Danny drew near. 

“You two alright?”

Carmilla scowled. “Peachy keen, girl scout.”

“Carm, be nice,” chastised Laura softly. She knew Carmilla had never gotten on with Danny, but considering that Danny had just saved their lives, Laura couldn’t understand the sour look on Carmilla’s face.

“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Carmilla. She sighed.  “Thanks for saving our butts, Xena.”

“Any time,” Danny replied with an eye roll and false cheer. “Well, anyway, we better get this place cleaned up.  I guarantee you, unless your neighbors sleep like the literal dead, somebody called this in.  I’ll take the bodies out the fire escape.  And you might want to wash off, Laura.”

“Oh, god, I’m covered in goblin blood, aren’t I?” asked Laura, making a gagging sound.

“I’m afraid so, creampuff.”

“This night just keeps getting better and better.”

*** 

Approximately one hour and twenty-three minutes later, the four of them had mostly sorted out the apartment (there was only so much you could do with vampire blood on the couch and goblin blood on the carpet), fended off the inquiries of two suspicious police officers (“Really, officers, it was just a stupid prank by a couple of our friends. Yes, I’m sure that is paint.  Absolutely, we’ll totally keep the noise down.”), and managed to feed themselves (more blood for Danny and eggs in a basket for everyone else).  After agreeing to shelve the detecting work until everybody got some rest, Kirsch had passed out on a clean spot on the living room floor with a spare blanket and pillow, and Laura was in the shower desperately trying to get the rest of the goblin blood out of her hair, which left Carmilla and Danny staring sullenly across the kitchen table at each other.  The minutes ticked by slowly without either saying a word.

Carmilla rose suddenly with the sound of the shower cutting off in the next room. “I guess that’s my cue.”

She exited the kitchen into the hall only to be blocked by Danny, who’d used a burst of vampiric speed to cut her off.

“Out of the way, Ginger Giant. I am not in the mood right now,” growled Carmilla, crossing her arms.

Danny ignored her. “What is your problem with me?  I know things were far from perfect when I left Silas, but since you seem to know a lot about where I’ve been you should also know that I’ve been keeping things on the up and up.  So what, you’re the only vampire who gets to have a redemption story around here, or are you just this much of a broody asshole all the time?”

“My problem is that Laura and I have been relatively danger free for the last three years, and you’ve swooped in and changed that in one night,” bit out Carmilla. “Sure, Silas was still way into the weird, but pretty much once Mother was gone and a new board stepped in it was a benign weird. And now we’re here, living normal human lives and I don’t want Laura dragged into this life again.  Not for you.”

Danny scoffed.

“Hey, if you want to tell yourself that that’s your issue with me, go ahead, be my guest. But before you go laying blame on me, maybe you should’ve thought twice about going into the dark yourself.  Because those goblins weren’t here for me,” Danny replied sharply, poking Carmilla hard in the chest, “If anyone is putting Laura in danger it’s you.”

Before Carmilla could respond Danny strode off down the hall and into the living room. She stared balefully into the empty space, working her jaw.  She wanted to chase after the cocky vampire, give her another piece of her mind, but she knew with infuriating certainty that Danny was right.  Three hundred years of experience and she was acting like those toddlers in the living room.  And Laura had almost paid the price for that stupidity.  Carmilla wanted to scream.  Instead she ran a shaky hand through her hair and blew out a ragged breath.

“God damn it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the super dialogue-heavy chapter. The next one will also be heavy on the talking but I'm hoping they are interesting enough to keep you engaged. I promise the action will pick up soon!


	3. In which Carmilla comes clean in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, peeps, I realized in writing this chapter that maybe this story is a little darker than canon-typical violence (largely because the violence mostly takes place off screen in the series), so I upgraded the warning on the story. That said I'm really not trying to get too brutal, while acknowledging that Carmilla has a pretty twisted past and that vampires really are, in fact, monsters.

Laura stared at the ceiling, arms crossed behind her head while she listened to the water running in the shower. She was exhausted, yet too wired to sleep.  She didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry or simply be glad no one was truly hurt tonight.  When Danny had shared the story of her current mystery, she’d been excited, but a pair of goblins crashing through the front door was a sobering reminder that these things tended to carry a serious risk of pain and bodily injury.  She rubbed her throat unconsciously and rolled onto her side facing the bedroom wall with a grumpy huff.  Then there was the issue with Carm.  She had no idea how she was supposed to feel on that one, because she didn’t even know what the frilly hell was going on.  One thing was certain though - she was getting answers tonight whether Carmilla wanted to give them or not.

She could hear the shower stop in the other room and a few minutes later the bedroom door quietly creaked open and then shut as Carmilla entered the room. She followed the soft padding of Carmilla’s bare feet across the wood and the throw rugs until they stopped by the edge of the bed.  She remained quiet when the mattress dipped as her girlfriend eased into bed.  Behind her, Carmilla heaved a deep sigh.

“OK, cutie, so how much trouble am I in this time?” Carmilla sounded resigned.

 “I haven’t decided,” Laura grumbled, clenching the blanket between her fingers.  “I’m pretty pissed, you know.” 

Carmilla grunted in acknowledgment but didn’t answer. Half of Laura wanted to grab Carmilla and not let her go, the other half wanted to rip into her.  She settled for rolling over.  Carmilla looked down at her from her seat at the head of the bed, her eyes showing a mix of heavy emotions, dark circles bespeaking a bone-deep exhaustion.  Laura hadn’t seen that look in years.  Some of Laura’s anger fled at the sorry sight in front of her.  She reached out and pulled Carmilla down, drawing her close until they lay face to face, barely a breath apart.

“Carm, what’s been going on?” asked Laura softly. “You haven’t kept things from me in a really long time and it’s scaring me a little.  Plus there’s the whole goblins in my living room thing.”

“I thought it was _our_ living room,” replied Carmilla with a half smirk.

“Don’t deflect,” said Laura seriously. “I need to know what’s up with you and I need to know now, tonight. I gave you space and now there’s goblin blood on the carpet, so start spilling.”

Carmilla’s features sagged a little, her eyes sliding away from Laura’s. She swallowed and reached out, playing with a strand of Laura’s hair.  Laura waited, knowing that Carmilla would talk eventually.

“You know London has never been my favorite city. I’d much rather be in Paris or Prague or just about anywhere else in Europe to be honest,” she started quietly.

“Yeah, but your snarky comments about the banality of British art and culture don’t exactly explain what’s been going on,” remarked Laura, remembering the discussion they’d had before Laura decided to accept her internship. Carmilla had seemed oddly tense about moving to London, but in the end she’d conceded without too much convincing.

“Yeah, well, that may have been a diversionary tactic.”

Laura looked at Carmilla askance as the dark-haired girl seemed to draw even further into herself. Carm’s hand fell away and she closed her eyes.  Then something clicked for Laura.

“Something happened here, in the past, when you were still a-“

“-vampire, yeah,” finished Carmilla, her voice low. She slowly opened her eyes, meeting Laura’s gaze.  She gave a tired, half-hearted smile.  “So buckle up, cupcake, because it’s flashback time.”

Carmilla’s eyes lost their focus as her mind drifted into the past and her voice strengthened as she began her tale:

“It was late spring in 1861 when Mattie and I were sent to London to by Mother. It was quite unusual actually because Mother often let me have my own head by that point, and except for the times I was required to return to Silas, I spent most of my time at leisure with Mattie or finding adventures of my own.  This was before Elle of course, so she still trusted me, at least as much as she trusted anyone.  But this trip was not optional.  Mother sent us with a very specific task to complete and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

“I despised London from the first. The Industrial Revolution was sweeping Europe at the time, and Imperial Britain was its dark heart.  The smell from the Thames was foul from raw sewage, the skies were dim with the smog of industrial fires, the air was so thick you could taste the acrid, stinking essence of the city on your tongue.  Oh, I know if I’d bothered to look, there was so much more that the city had to offer, great intellectuals and philosophers, artists and writers.  London was booming in more ways than one.  But I was already irritated with being waylaid from my usual pleasures by Mother’s orders and for me the city’s first impression was not a pleasant one.  I wanted nothing more to leave as soon as I set foot in it.” 

“The job was supposed to be simple. Mattie and I were sent here to cut a deal with the Order of Nemetona, a local band of wizards and warlocks who claimed to be the descendants of the druids or some such thing.  They had some ancient tome Mother desperately wanted, and she would do just about anything to get it, including trade away her influence in the city.  Looking back on it now, it’s quite possible that that book was one of the many that she used to decipher the riddles of the hellgates.  It’s the only reason I can think for her being willing to give up so much for seemingly so little.”

Carmilla paused. Laura’s hand drifted to Carmilla’s hip and she gave her a reassuring squeeze in some small attempt to keep her anchored to the present.  Laura gently encouraged her to continue, “So what did giving up her influence mean exactly?”

“That’s the fun bit. Around 1830 or so, Mother left a group of her children in London, led by a vampire named Algernon Markham. They were supposed to be Mother’s eyes and ears and hands in the growing epicenter of British power, quiet and discrete, but by 1861 it seemed Algernon had grown a little too comfortable in his position.  He was young, younger than me by at least fifty years, and impetuous.  Mattie could never understand why Mother left him in charge in the first place.  In Mother’s absence he’d become bold, garnering notice from more than one group of humans, and he’d gained a reputation for senseless and brutal cruelty that was impressive even among Mother’s children.  The Order was a rising power in London at the time, and they wanted Algernon gone.  So that was the deal Mother struck – the book for Algernon and his lot vacating the city.  The problem was little bro had no interest in leaving.  So Mattie and I were sent to sort it out and make sure that both Algernon and the book returned to Mother.”

“At first we tried reason and appeals to family and to the authority of Mother. Algernon was having none of it.  He was too young to realize how dangerous Mother could be.  Hell, he was too young to realize how dangerous Mattie could be.  Eventually things escalated to threats, but still Algernon resisted.  If anything he flaunted Mother’s edict by stepping up his open attacks on humans, drawing even more attention to himself.  Meanwhile the Order was growing restless.  We couldn’t simply take the book by force because for a group of humans the Order was oddly resourceful.  Eventually Mattie decided that Algernon had to be taken in hand whether he wanted to or not.”

“The night we were supposed to approach him I foolishly got a little blood drunk. Seeing my state, Mattie decided that she could handle Algernon on her own - after all he was practically a child still while she was entering her second millennia.  To this day I wish that I had not been so stupidly careless, or that Mattie had just waited one more night.”

The regret that laced Carmilla’s voice sounded so fresh, as if it came from something that happened recently, not a century and a half ago. Laura wondered what could weigh so heavily on Carmilla after all these years.  Only her affair with Elle seemed to elicit greater heartache.  After a pregnant pause, Carmilla continued.

“Algernon knew Mattie was coming for him so he fled. She tracked him through the city and they ended up in this warehouse district.  I don’t know if she became overconfident or if there were simply too many of them and only one of her, but Algernon and his crew captured her.”

“Like we captured you,” supplied Laura.

“Hardly. Despite your best attempts, you and the Scooby gang were harmless kittens compared to Algernon,” replied Carmilla grimly.  She shuddered and closed her eyes, her voice pained.  “Somehow Mattie escaped, I have no idea how, because when she showed up at our house she was bloody, half dead, barely able to keep herself upright.  They’d fed on her, repeatedly, little bits at a time, like it was a sick game.  I don’t know if you understand what that means.  Vampires may play with their food from time to time, but we never feed off each other.  Never.  It’s simply not done, especially like that.”

Carmilla’s eyes snapped open and it wasn’t pain in her eyes any longer, it was rage. Laura almost shrank back from the burning fury there.  Instead she tightened her grip on Carmilla’s hip.  Her heart leapt into her throat, part of her hurting with Carmilla.  She whispered, “What happened then?”

Carmilla laughed hollowly. “Then I burned Algernon and his crew alive for daring to hurt my sister like that.”

“You what?!” Laura burst out, staring at her girlfriend, stunned.

“Cupcake, you know who I was - what I was - back then. And you know what Mattie meant to me.  Is it really a surprise that I wreaked bloody vengeance on Algernon?”  Carmilla peered at her as if looking for understanding.

As Laura overcame the initial shock, she conceded that such actions were well within the bounds of Carmilla’s former life. Sometimes she’d almost forget about the ex-vampire’s extraordinarily violent past, too busy building a present and future that belonged to both of them.  “OK, so you may have a point there.  But I mean how did you even manage to go all Carrie on Algernon when he’d clearly been clever enough to take on Mattie?”

Carmilla shrugged.  “She underestimated him, but he underestimated me, and more to the point the lengths I would go to.  It’s one of the few times as a vampire I willingly went out during the day.  It hurts like hell, but it’s not lethal under enough layers of clothes and given the circumstances I didn’t exactly care.  I found them while they slept away in the same warehouse where they’d fed on Mattie.  They were so sure they were safe.  He and his crew didn’t even hear me as I opened the fire doors inside, blocked the entrances, and barred the windows.  Then I set the place alight.  It seems fitting that it was the first time I used my mind to do it.  The place was full of cotton, jute and other flammable materials, and it went up like a box of matches.  At the time I thought it was one of the most beautiful things that I’d ever seen.  That was June 22, 1861 and I remember it like it was yesterday.”

“I know it should bother me, but even now the sounds of that bastard screaming as he burned brings me a little comfort. Great crowds of people came from all over London to watch the warehouse burn and I blended into the throng, watching the flames all through the night as they spread from one warehouse to another.  They say it took two weeks to put the fires out completely and that you could see the glow fifty miles from the city.  I wouldn’t know.  The very next night Mattie and I procured the book from the Order and left London with the understanding that we’d never set foot in the city again.”

“Oh my god, Carm,” Laura whispered. A complicated mess of emotions lodged in her chest as it did every time Carmilla’s violent past came forward.  She ached for her lover’s pain while she was repulsed by the sheer brutality of the whole incident.  Then, Carmilla’s words sank even deeper and her eyes widened in realization.  She popped up on an elbow, peering down at the ex-vampire.  Her voice rose in pitch and volume with just a dash of horror, “Oh my god, Carm!  You set the Tooley Street fire!  The biggest fire in London since the Great Fire!”

Camilla gave her a sheepish look. “Guilty as charged?”

Laura flopped onto her back with a distraught sound. Carmilla leaned over her.

“You alright there, cutie?”

Laura furiously rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Yep, yep.  No problems here.  Just wrapping my brain around the fact that I’m dating the person responsible for one of this city’s biggest man-made disasters in the past three and a half centuries.  Nope, I’m good.”

“Laura,” Carmilla said gently, laying a hand on Laura’s shoulder.

Laura took a deep breath and let it out. It was a good thing she’d already texted her boss that she was sick with food poisoning, because she was apparently never going to sleep again and even if she did she’d still be unfit for work with the way her brain was trying to fold itself inside out.   She took another breath and turned her head to face Carmilla.  Her voice was steadier when she replied, “I’m OK, Carm.  It’s just that usually your stories feel like just that – stories.  But this connects to a point of history that everyone knows and somehow that makes it all a little more real, you know?”

“What, you think I was just making up all those other tales to impress the girls? Like Vordenburg, only devilishly hot and with a better sense of fashion?” teased Carmilla.

Laura rolled her eyes. “Of course not.  It just hits me sometimes – you actually lived through so many of the things we only read about in books.  It’s feels so big.”

“But it’s not big, not when it’s happening. It’s just a moment in a life.  A vampire’s life, granted, but still just a life.  I was just acting and reacting, like anyone else.”

“I guess,” conceded Laura dubiously. “OK, so you clearly have a hate-hate relationship with London.  Why did you even agree to move here?”

Carmilla shrugged again, her expression thoughtful. “You were so excited to get your internship and I figured, hey, new century, new city, even new me.  Seemed like enough time had passed that I could give it a try, especially when it meant so much to you.”

Laura gave Carmilla a small smile, awed by the magnitude of Carmilla’s decision to follow her to London given everything, and loving her a little more for it. The smile faded though as she thought about the past few weeks.  “But hitting the reset button wasn’t so easy?”

Carmilla frowned. “I’ve been having dreams lately.  Dark dreams about Mattie and Algernon.  I keep getting this feeling like…like something is lurking, just around the corner.  I can’t explain it.”

“So, what, instead of talking out your PTSD you decided to go all vigilante on the monsters of London?” asked Laura incredulously.

“No!” protested Carmilla, her eyes going wide. “Trust me, playing hero was the last thing on my mind.  Quite the opposite in fact.  I thought if I could just see the city for what it is now, I’d somehow feel better.   Prove that there were no more demons in the shadows or something.  It sounds stupid, I know, but I was just trying to shake off my past.”

“Then what was up with the goon squad earlier, because that sure looked like you’d been doing more than taking a few late night strolls,” remarked Laura. To emphasize her point, she lightly grazed her fingertips over the raw scraped surface of Carmilla’s knuckles.

Surprisingly, Carmilla blushed. “That was an accident.  I was visiting some of Algernon’s old haunts, just to check them out and reassure myself that no one was around, when I saw half pint heading down an alley with an unconscious woman slung over his shoulder.  Clearly his intentions were not of the puppies and rainbows variety so I stepped in.  What?”

Laura fixed Carmilla with a stern glare. “An accident?  You just accidentally decided to punch a goblin? I’m just glad my dad and I insisted you take those krav maga classes.”

“Hey, it’s not like it was my first scrape,” objected Carmilla.

Laura raised a knowing eyebrow. “No, because that would be the first twenty bar fights you started forgetting you no longer possessed inhuman strength. Then we made you take the classes, which while they didn’t stop you from getting into street brawls, they at least improved your chances of coming out alive and with most of your body parts in the right place.  But those were humans, Carm, not super-powered creatures of the dark.”

“Look, all I did was mess with him enough to make him drop his human takeout. The ruckus we caused attracted a crowd and he high-tailed it after that.  So did I when I found out the cops were coming.  I never thought tweedle-dee would show up with tweedle-dum.  Usually goblins don’t like that kind of direct confrontation.  I wasn’t looking for trouble,” Carmilla insisted.

Laura gave her a skeptical look, but let it slide for the moment. She wasn’t happy, not with the fact that her lover had hidden her problems from her, nor with the small matter of the now very human Carmilla wandering the night alone, but she also found that she had more than a trace of sympathy for the former vampire.  Clearly coming to London had dredged up painful things that Carmilla hadn’t expected to face.  Carmilla’s eyes searched Laura’s, her face open and vulnerable, and Laura couldn’t find it in herself to stay mad any longer.

“Oh, come here and stop pouting,” muttered Laura, opening her arms to Carmilla. The dark haired woman slid into her embrace easily, placing her head on Laura’s chest.  They seemed to melt together and Laura could feel the tension leaking from both their bodies.

“So does this mean I’m out of the doghouse?” Carmilla asked, her voice muffled by Laura’s shirt.

“You might get one more lecture from me about sharing important emotional things and maintaining personal safety, but yes, you are off the hook, Miss Karnstein,” replied Laura playfully.

“Watch it, beautiful, you’re starting to sound like your dad,” joked Carmilla. Laura poked Carmilla in the side and the ex-vampire laughed.

They lay nestled together for a few quiet moments, finally finding the rest that had been denied them all night long. Carmilla’s fingers traced idle patterns on Laura’s stomach while Laura reviewed everything Carmilla had told her, turning the facts over in her mind.  A stray thought surfaced.

“Carm?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you freak when Danny showed us those photos?”

Carmilla’s fingers stilled and Laura felt her lover’s body stiffen. She couldn’t see Carmilla’s expression, but she was certain it wasn’t good.  The silence stretched uncomfortably long before Carmilla finally said, “The multiple bite marks.  That’s what Mattie’s arms looked like, after Algernon.  It’s a good way to bleed someone slowly and painfully.”

Laura couldn’t think of anything to say other than a soft ‘oh’. She stroked Carmilla’s hair until the ex-vampire relaxed against her once again. Within a few minutes Carmilla’s breathing shifted and Laura knew that exhaustion had finally claimed her. She traced the line of Carmilla’s jaw and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. The love that she had for this beautiful, heart-breakingly complicated woman swelled in her chest. Bloody past be damned, she knew she’d do anything to protect Carm. Thoughts of her lover’s past collided with the newest mystery facing them, and Laura’s exhausted brain tried to make sense of it all. But there were too many missing pieces and she was way too tired, and finally, as Carmilla slept curled in the crook of her arm, Laura could feel sleep slipping in on her as well, and though her mind was full of vampires and goblins and ghosts, she welcomed it as a long awaited friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so nobody get mad at me for ragging on London. I adored London on my one and only trip there way too long ago. But even reading about conditions in 1860s London was not pleasant. Just look up the Great Stink of 1858. Yes, that's a real thing, along with cholera, alkali poisoning, methane explosions, etc.


	4. In which a certain science freak is asked for a consultation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a few extra days to get this up, but hopefully the extra length will be a consolation.

Carmilla gasped as Laura’s lips traced a hungry line down her neck.  Apparently Laura really had forgiven her if their current situation was any indication.  They’d slept well past noon, seeing as they’d finally bedded down a scant hour before sunrise, and when they’d awoken, Laura had given her a smoky look that had instantly set fire to Carmilla’s blood.  They’d barely managed a bathroom break before they were tumbling back into bed.  Carmilla moaned as Laura bit down on the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

“Shh,” hushed Laura as she nosed Carmilla’s ear, “We’ve got visitors, remember.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one who’s been getting teased for the last twenty minutes,” groaned Carmilla softly, not bothering to point out that Kirsch slept like a rock, and if Danny was awake, it wouldn’t matter how quiet they were, the vampire’s keen ears would be able to hear everything. Let Laura keep up her small pretenses as long as she got on with it.

“So you’re saying that I should stop?” Laura taunted gently as she traveled lower.

Carmilla arched and shuddered as Laura took a nipple into her mouth. She growled, half threat and half plea, “Don’t you dare.”

Hot breath tickled the skin stretched across her ribs as Laura chuckled. The light vibration set up an echoing thrumming in Carmilla’s chest and she tangled her fingers in Laura’s hair, getting lost in the sensations of her lover’s body pressed against her own.  No matter how strained things got between them, this part had always come easy, the thousand little ways their bodies whispered _I love you_ even when everything else might be falling apart.  Laura always felt like home.  Carmilla could think of nothing but how more than three centuries of life had distilled down to this one amazing, vibrant, precious woman.  Then Laura’s hand was between her thighs and all thought melted away.

***

Grimacing at the taste of cold coffee, Carmilla set her mug down as she continued to examine the strange silver object on the table in front of her. The morning’s (rather afternoon’s) extracurricular activities aside, her troubled thoughts had quickly returned to their little group’s current mess.  Granted she felt a great deal better after finally sharing her emotional turmoil with Laura, but she was frustrated with herself for not doing so sooner.  And she really couldn’t explain to herself why she hadn’t.  Mix that in with the fact that her feeling of creeping dread had not subsided, and she had half a mind to shove the evidence in Danny and Kirsch’s arms and force march the two right out of the apartment.  But even if she could overcome Danny’s preternatural strength, she knew Laura would never let it go, and truth be told somewhere along the line she’d become one of those annoying people who couldn’t either.  So instead here she was, grumpily drinking cold coffee on a perfectly decent Tuesday afternoon trying to puzzle out exactly what it was she was looking at.

The cylinder was about as tall and wide as a two liter bottle of soda, heavy but not overly so, and made up of a series of metallic, elongated hexagonal facets, each inscribed with its own rune. It was weighted on the bottom and open at the top, with metal flaps thrown wide by springs.  While the runes on the exterior indicated magic, the interior was covered in metal filaments that looked distinctly technological.  There even seemed to be some sort of circuitry and possible a power source at the bottom, though Carmilla had no idea how to turn it on, nor had any inclination to do so given that she had no idea what the thing was.  A thin, sticky film of unknown origin coated the entire interior.  She recognized a few of the runes – one for ‘spirit’, another for ‘strength’ - but not enough, and even if she had known all of them, the purpose of their arrangement eluded her.  Order was everything - organized differently the same runes could produce anything from an apocalyptic war machine to a magic salad spinner.  She picked the contraption up, flipping it over.  The only mark on the bottom was an imprint of an oak tree and a ram.

Carmilla groaned. Of course.

“Find something?” asked Laura as she floated into the kitchen. Carmilla couldn’t help but preen a little at the way Laura moved, all loose-limbed and languid.  She was proud for her part in that.  Oblivious to her audience, Laura opened the fridge door and her face scrunched in disappointment at the scarce contents, before bending over to search in the depths.

Carmilla took a moment to enjoy the view before she cleared her throat and said, “Remember that group of wizards I mentioned last night?”

Laura’s head popped back up, her eyes suddenly alight with interest. “The Order of Nematode?  Wait, no, that’s not right…”

“Nemetona. Well, our mystery gadget has their symbol on it,” explained Carmilla, flashing the bottom of the container toward Laura.  “I didn’t even know they were around anymore, but this is definitely their mark.”

Laura scampered over to the table, crowding close to Carmilla to get a better look. “So any clue what this thing actually does or what it was doing in Danny’s place?”

“I’ve got an idea or two, but it’s a blend of enchantment and tech I’ve never seen before and I’d like a second opinion. And I think there’s someone both of us know who might be willing to offer their scientific expertise on the matter.” Carmilla looked up at Laura.  Laura grinned back at her.

“It’s a little early in Munich for Laf to be off work, but let me see if they can take a Skype call. Hang on, I’ll grab my laptop.”  Laura bolted out of the room with just a little too much enthusiasm.  Carmilla had to admit, even with her trepidation about having Laura anywhere near anything supernatural again, the young journalist’s excitement was just a touch contagious.  Carmilla had spent the last three years finishing a pointless philosophy degree and basically following Laura around while using three centuries worth of smart investments to occasionally spoil her with a fancy vacation.  She’d been deliriously happy just being at Laura’s side, but three years on there was a tiny bit of a thrill having a new mystery to tease out.

In what seemed like only ten seconds flat, Laura was back with the laptop booted up and LaFontaine’s head peering at them from the screen.

“Laf! I didn’t expect you to be home so early!” cried Laura happily.  The red-headed scientist smiled broadly back at them, their artificial eye glinting red in the light.

“Hey Frosh,” Laf greeted with the nickname that seemed to be eternal, despite Laura’s graduation three months ago. Then they nodded at Carmilla, “Dark and broody.”

“Science freak, how are you doing?”

“Ah, well, I’ve been working from home these days,” replied Laf, looking around their surroundings. “It’s not too bad.  The lab was getting kind of stuffy.  I talked to my supervisor and we agreed I should be working up some manuscripts on our latest results.”

Carmilla sensed a bit of hesitation in Laf’s response, but before she could comment, Laura piped up, “And how’s Perry?” 

“Pretty happy actually,” remarked Laf, then a look of confusion crossed their features, “I think she might even be dating someone.”

Laura squealed. “Might?!  You cannot just drop a bombshell like that without explanation.  Tell me everything!”

Carmilla stifled a chuckle at the cornered look on Laf’s face. Another apocalypse could be on its way, but Laura would always have an unhealthy investment in her friends’ dating lives.  Carmilla hadn’t gotten to see this side of her girlfriend much during the period of epic madness that technically constituted their first year together, but once things settled, Laura’s journalistic curiosity kicked into hyperdrive when it came to the romance of those closest to her.  Laf looked terrified.

“There’s a woman from Perry’s sewing circle that comes around a fair bit, and they’re always off doing things together. And sometimes they stop talking when I come into the room and Perry gets this really awkward, embarrassed look on her face.  I think it’s embarrassment anyway.  I mean, there’s no copulating on the office furniture in front of an active webcam like a certain pair that I know, but the evidence is mounting.” 

Completely ignoring the jab at her more exhibitionist tendencies, Laura looked ready to launch into a barrage of questions.  Carmilla decided to rescue Laf.

“So, how’s cyborg eye, version 3.0 working out?”

Laf shot Carmilla a grateful glance and shrugged. “Eh, I’m still not getting a beam with any density to form, so the laser is more of a novelty at this point, but Leeuwenhoek seems to enjoy chasing it around.”  They motioned to the stripped tabby that was crossing the living room behind them.  The cat paused mid-stride, stared at the webcam in a creepily appraising way, and then continued on.   “Guess that’s a win.  It’s sending better imaging into the neural connection, and I’m trying to adapt it to pick up infrared and ultraviolet, but the last time I tried it I had a headache for two days.  The human brain is just so limited when it comes to expanding the visual spectrum.  Ooh, and I can do this.”

They tapped something on the side of the harness holding the eye in place. The mechanical eye projected a beam of bright light straight at the webcam and the picture on the screen flared white.

“Whoa there, Spotlight. Give us a break,” complained Carmilla, squinting at the computer.

“Oops, sorry.” The light clicked off and Laf looked at them curiously.  “So what can I do for you?”

Laura launched into a haphazard recap of the events of the last twenty-four hours, heavily editing the bits about Carmilla’s past, for which the former vampire felt thankful. Not that she thought that Laf would judge, but it wasn’t a period of time she relished having on display for all to see either.  When Laura finished showing Laf the cylinder and e-mailing a couple of clear pictures, the scientist sat with their chin in their hand and a look of contemplation on their face.

“Anything?” questioned Laura after a few moments.

“Maybe,” replied Laf vaguely, “but I want to run a couple of tests first.”

The scientist looked away from the webcam and started tapping away vigorously on their keyboard. Carmilla and Laura shared a puzzled look.

“Hey, Einstein, I hate to break it to you, but that’s going to be hard to do from Munich,” drawled Carmilla.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I just booked the 7:45 into London.”  Laf glanced down at the watch on their wrist before going back to typing.  “That gives me a couple of hours to pack and tell Perr.  I’ll be there by 10:00.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Laf, you can’t just do that,” protested Laura. “Can you?” 

Laf didn’t even look away from what Carmilla presumed were other open windows on their desktop.  “Not a problem.  I have tons of time saved up and after my last experiment with cross-dimensional polarization of plasma, I think my boss might not mind me being out of the way, at least until they fix the holes in the wall.”

Suddenly Laf looked upward as if remembering something. They exclaimed, “I’ve got to get my equipment together!  The ultrasonic inverter, maybe a few of those new scanners I’ve been working on, oh and-“

“Laf!” Laura shouted. The scientist startled, as if they’d forgotten Carmilla and Laura were even there.

“Oh, sorry, I got to go! I’ve got a ton to do if I’m going to make my flight.  I’ll see you in-“ Laf glanced at their watch again “-five hours and twenty-five minutes.  See you soon.  Bye!”

“What, wait, no!” Laura stuttered out. She let out a loud groan as the screen went blank. 

Carmilla raised an eyebrow. “Well, that was…unexpected.”

Danny chose that moment to shuffle into the kitchen, stretching and yawning. Her pallor had improved greatly and she barely winced as she grabbed a blood bag from the fridge.  Sucking it down with obvious relish, she turned to Carmilla and Laura, seeming to notice for the first time their perplexed expressions.  “So what’s up?”

Laura gave Carmilla a look of consternation and then tilted her head as she blinked at the now black monitor. Carmilla took that as a cue to summarize things for Danny.  “I think young Frankenstein just admitted to blowing up their work before unilaterally deciding to come to London - tonight.” 

A slow smile started to creep across Laura’s face, and Carmilla groaned internally. She knew that look.  Laura said, “I think we’re getting the band back together. 

Danny stared at Laura and Carmilla for a moment, her features inscrutable. Then she took a long drag on her blood and said, “Fine, but I am not giving up the couch.”

***

Laura fidgeted in the passenger seat while Kirsch pulled the van that Carmilla had instantly dubbed ‘the creepy serial killer-mobile’ onto the highway heading toward Gatwick. Danny had argued back that its painted-over windows made it a perfect vehicle for daytime transport, with Kirsch driving and Danny hidden in the shadows.  The ensuing snark fest had not inspired confidence in Laura about leaving the two of them alone together for any length of time.  Truth be told she could think of a hundred and one reasons why it was a terrible plan to leave Carmilla and Danny behind, but with the two of them having the most knowledge about the case (not that that was saying much) and Danny still occasionally bleeding through her bandages, it only made sense to let them chase down leads via phone and internet while she and Kirsch went out on the blood/Laf pickup run.  One decidedly uneventful stop behind a local blood bank later and they were on their way to the airport.  Kirsch was babbling on about some Indian place that he had found just around the corner from where he and Danny had been crashing and though Laura was thoroughly impressed that his palette had finally expanded beyond hot wings and burritos, her curiosity was slowly and torturously killing her.

“So, Kirsch,” she finally interjected when he took a breath, “how long have you been playing Robin to Danny’s Batman?”

For a moment, Kirsch looked up as if he was counting, which made Laura fear for their safety as the van sped along the highway. “Hmm, ‘bout a year now, I guess.  It’s been great!  I’ve seen soooo many cool places and crazy things.  And I really dig helping people, you know?”

“Yeah, I can understand that,” Laura replied, and she did. That was why she was so committed to being a journalist - exposing the truth of the injustices around her – even if sometimes something in her did feel the draw to more direct action.  Right now, though, she was dying to know more about Kirsch’s story and through him, more of Danny’s.  She’d often wondered what had happened to the woman she’d once called friend and the young man that had always raced to their aid, even if it usually got him hurt. 

The last Laura had heard of the vampire, Danny had left Silas in a spectacularly bloody fashion, filleting a flock of harpies and a squad of Corvae guards on her way out. Granted, the vampire had also saved a group of students from being fed to said harpies by said guards, but Laura never knew if Danny had been more motivated by her sense of justice or just her need to sate her violent urges.  And since Danny had seen fit to vacate the premises by the time Laura and Carmilla had emerged from the Pit, Laura never got the chance to ask.  She’d always secretly hoped that Danny was turning a corner.  Hell, the sheer fact that Danny had also left Theo alive, albeit with both arms broken, was practically proof enough that the vampire had been learning restraint before she bailed.  After Silas had settled, Laura had hung out with Kirsch a couple of times, but there was always a big Danny-shaped hole in the background, and after the Zeta graduated they’d lost contact.  “I thought you’d gone off to coach inner city kids or something like that.  What happened?”

“After I graduated I moved to Budapest, and I started helping out the little dudes and dudettes there. At least for a while.  But then after, like, a year, a couple of the kids went missing.  At first the police just thought they were normal kidnappings, but then things starting getting really hairy, with even more kids disappearing.  And then one night Danny shows up on my doorstep and asks me to help her find the missing kids, so I was all like ‘Hell yeah’ and she was like ‘Cool’.  So we tracked down this tree dude called a leshy that had been taking the kids.  Turns out it was all a big misunderstanding, the kids were fine, and the leshy had just wandered into the wrong forest or something, but it was really awesome getting to hang out with D-Bear again and it seems like she needed the help, so I stuck around.”

“And there’s no more of her making you a blood slurpy?” questioned Laura hesitantly, not sure where that ranked on the privacy meter, but genuinely concerned for Kirsch’s well-being. His unyielding faith in Danny may have helped the vampire start turning her life around before she left Silas, but it also led to the Zeta being used as a midnight snack or a punching bag a disconcerting number of times before that.

“Nah, she’s got the whole bloodlust thing under control now. I mean, except for this one time, but I think she was mind-scrubbed by this witch-“

“Brain-washed?” Laura offered uncertainly.

“-yeah, that, so it wasn’t really her, right?” Kirsch concluded cheerfully.

“Right,” Laura agreed dubiously. After a moment of silence, she asked quietly, “So, how is she, I mean outside of the work?”

Kirsch’s smile dimmed a little and he shrugged. “I mean she’s way better than when the Dean was around, but I think she gets sad sometimes still, and angry.  Oh man, you should see the place when she gets all raged out!  Mega trashed.  But most of the time, she’s more like her old self.  I don’t think she’s killed anyone since she left Silas – well, except for a few vamps and other monsters – and mostly I think she just wants to help people.”

“Does she talk about Silas? About…about what happened?”  Laura wasn’t sure if she wanted the answer to be yes or no.

Kirsch gave her one of those looks he sometimes got, like for once he understood more than his typical obliviousness usually allowed. He shook his head.  “I think she’s just been trying to move on.  I guess if it was me, I’d feel the same.”

“Yeah,” Laura said softly, almost to herself.

Laura didn’t know how to feel about Danny’s sudden appearance, or the way everyone had quickly fallen into old patterns, jumping on the mystery at hand without so much as a discussion (she knew she was as guilty as anyone on that front and that there probably should be a conversation or two about that sometime soon). But she was glad that the vampire had a friend like Kirsch and that she seemed to be finding a path back to something good. 

They spent the rest of the ride dwelling on lighter subjects while Laura processed everything that had been dumped in her lap over the last twenty-four hours. Last night the goblins and Carmilla’s story had given her serious pause and it wasn’t like she was intent on throwing herself in more danger, but she couldn’t ignore the sense of excitement that had reignited in the light of day, either.  LaFontaine coming to London had elevated that feeling to giddy anticipation.

Finally they pulled up to the arrivals curb-side pickup and Laura spotted Laf’s shock of red hair and mechanized eye patch across the throng of people. She waved excitedly, leaping from the car as soon as Kirsch stopped the van.   She made a bee-line for the scientist, who pushed off a cement column, a backpack slung over their shoulder and a lazy smile on their face.  A pile of baggage surrounded Laf, clear of evidence of the packing frenzy that had no doubt ensued after their abrupt hang-up earlier.  Laura grinned and was about to throw herself at Laf when a familiar voice caught her off guard.  A second all too recognizable redhead appeared from behind the column, a pinched expression on her face.

“I seriously don’t understand why all this equipment was necessary, LaFontaine.  You said we’d probably only be here for a couple of days.”

Laura gaped and then beamed. “Perry!”

***

The apartment had been remarkably conflict free while Laura and Kirsch were gone – after some boundaries had been established, of course, namely “the kitchen is mine, the living room is yours” variety. There’d only been a moderate amount of eye-rolling and grumbling on the part of both parties.  Carmilla had abandoned the mystery object in favor of Laura’s laptop, where she was currently digging for clues on the Order of Nemetona.  She could hear the murmur of Lawrence’s voice as the vampire made calls from the couch that she seemed to have grown unnaturally attached to.  Suddenly, the redhead loomed over her shoulder and Carmilla bit down on her lip to keep back a yelp of surprise.  She wasn’t about to give the vampire the satisfaction, though from the small smirk on Danny’s face, she suspected the quickening of her traitorous heart had given her away.  Carmilla cursed internally. 

“Can I do something for you, Big Red?” asked Carmilla, eyeing Danny suspiciously.

“Kirsch and Laura are home,” announced Danny.

Right, vampire hearing. Wonderful.  Carmilla tried to ignore the tiny stab of jealousy that surged up inside her.  She’d been happy when she’d been made mortal (well, once Laura was alive again), she was happy still.  She didn’t miss her vampiric abilities.  She didn’t.

Finally she could hear Laura’s voice as the front door opened, and her girlfriend’s happy chatter warmed her, bringing a small smile to her face.

“…the water nymphs were really the only problem last year. I mean I’m amazed that the new board ever managed to get campus up and running again, but really the last year was actually pretty quiet.  I’m grateful, because you know, journalism degree and all, but still amazed they pulled it off.”

LaFontaine’s voice carried down the hallway. “The bigger mystery is how Silas never actually lost its accreditation during anything that happened before that.  You’d think a plague of vampires, a campus civil war and an occupation by an earthbound goddess and her corporate toadies would put more of a dent in its academic reputation.  They didn’t even have class for a year!”

Carmilla pushed back her chair, ready to greet Laf, and was startled when the wrong ginger came around the corner into the kitchen. She recovered quickly, a smirk appearing, as she said, “I wasn’t expecting you, Curly Sue.”

Perry looked at Carmilla with a ghost of a smile and eyes that always held a touch of hardness ever since her release from the Dean’s possession. “Hello, Carmilla. I couldn’t have LaFontaine wondering off by themselves, now could I?  They still forget to eat way too often and I don’t suspect that you and Laura’s diets have improved much beyond sugar, hot chocolate and the occasional ramen.”

“Hey, there’s fruit in there too. If our time in the library taught me anything it was the value of fresh fruit.  I have even been known to eat a veggie from time to time,” protested Laura good-naturedly as she slipped past Perry.  She slid right up against Carmilla and circled her arms around Carmilla’s waist.  Carmilla smiled softly and placed a gentle kiss against Laura’s temple, as her girlfriend continued, “Actually Carmilla has turned into quite the cook when she puts her mind to it, if you don’t mind your steak extra rare.  I think the cuisine in Paris was a little more inspirational this time around, now that her favorite flavors aren’t O negative and B positive anymore.”

Perry raised a questioning brow and Carmilla met her with an amused but challenging look before turning to Laura and giving her another appreciative kiss.

“I see the PDA hasn’t gotten much better,” mocked LaFontaine as they finally made their way into the kitchen with what looked to be a crate of lab equipment. Carmilla gave the scientist her best salacious smirk, while Laura turned pink.  Kirsch followed close behind carrying another of Laf’s bags, and just like that the small kitchen went from cozy to cramped.

After a few awkward words of greeting between Danny and the ginger twins, and a lot of reorganization which included not a few grumbled curses on Carmilla’s part, everyone settled. LaFontaine had claimed the table for their instruments, immediately launching into an intense examination of the strange cylinder, while Laura, Kirsch and Carmilla took the other chairs.  Perry was predictably at the stove making tea.  Carmilla couldn’t help but notice the way Danny sat on the counter with her back to the wall, seemingly observing the others from as far a distance she could without leaving the room.  The former vampire was soon distracted by Laf’s grunt of recognition.

“I thought so,” muttered the scientist as they scrutinized the readout from one of the portable scanners. If Carmilla wasn’t mistaken, Laf had fed a sample of the container’s mystery coating into the machine.  She perked up, looking at Laf expectantly.  Beside her Laura did the same.  Even Danny’s gaze seemed to get more focused, though she still lounged against the wall.

After a few too many moments in which no explanation followed, Carmilla demanded impatiently, “Well?”

“It looks like the substance in the cylinder is a type of highly methylated, exteriorized gelatin with a unique molecular structure derived from extra-natural sources,” answered Laf, stilling reading the results.

“Which means what in English?” asked Laura.

“Ectoplasm,” replied the red-head. They glanced over their shoulder at Danny.  “Probably from your not-so-friendly neighborhood spook.”

“So are you thinking this is some kind of poltergeist transport?” questioned Carmilla. It would fit with both what she could decode of the runes and with Danny’s recounting of her attack.  “Like some sort of supernatural jack in the box?”

“Except the special surprise tries to kill you when it’s let out,” muttered Danny darkly.

Laf nodded vigorously, snatching the cylinder up and pointing to some of the interior circuitry with a probe, “I think these generate a containment field, and the runes on the outside probably reinforce the seal, making sure the ghost doesn’t escape before it’s supposed to. It’s a brilliant combination of magic and technology really.  I’d love to meet the person who crafted this masterpiece.”

“The runes might also make the poltergeist more powerful. You know, a little boost to make it more, um, effective,” said Perry as she placed four cups of tea down on the table.  All eyes turned to her, and a sudden look of panic crossed her face.  She waved her hands nervously in front of her.  “It was just a suggestion.”

“And how did that little idea occur to you?” wondered Carmilla aloud, her eyes narrowed as she watched Perry back away from the table.

“Some of the runes look vaguely familiar, that’s all,” said Perry a little too quickly. “Probably just something leftover from… _her_.”

“Right,” Carmilla said vaguely, unsatisfied. As far as she knew, Perry remembered almost nothing from Mother’s possession of her.  She tracked the ginger with her eyes as Perry busied herself with searching the kitchen cabinets for god knows what, her posture rigid.  Laura placed a hand on Carmilla’s forearm and when she looked back she could see the unspoken questions in Laura’s eyes.  Carmilla just shook her head.  Perry never had made much sense to her on a good day.

“OK, so if you’re right, we’ve got evidence of the Order killing vampires with weaponized poltergeists,” started Laura, “but why try and take out Danny? And how does this relate to the other murders?”

Suddenly, an idea sparked in Carmilla’s brain. She turned to Danny.  “Where’s your autopsy photos?”

Danny zipped to the living room and back, dropping the folders onto the table in front of Carmilla. Carmilla flipped though the photos rapidly, scanning for the marks she was almost certain would be there.  She found them soon enough.  One by one she yanked photos out of the folders and placed them side by side.

Everyone save Perry leaned over to take a closer look. Danny squinted at the photos and then she let out a hiss of air.  “Son of a bitch.”

“Carm?” questioned Laura.

“The murdered humans were part of the Order,” explained Carmilla. She pointed at various body parts on the corpses.  Each bore the sign of the oak and ram.  The marks were incredibly faint, nothing so obvious as a tattoo or brand, and easily overlooked if you didn’t know what you were looking for.  Carmilla wasn’t surprised that Danny had missed them the first go round.  “This wasn’t a random set of attacks.  There are vampires targeting the Order and it looks like the Order is fighting back.” 

“So, what, there’s some magical turf war being waged on the streets of London and Danny was just caught in the crossfire?” asked Laura, her voice rising.

Carmilla shrugged. “Mother’s deal with the Order was pretty airtight.  None of her children were ever supposed to enter the city again, full stop, do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars.  My guess is that after Inanna reascended into her godliness, some idiot vamps decided the arrangement was no longer binding.  If the Order caught wind of Danny snooping around the murder scenes and pegged her for a vampire, they figured she was fair game – which technically she is.”

Danny threw up her hands defensively. “Look, I did not know that the Dean had some prior agreement with anyone in London.”

“Doesn’t matter, Xena, because as one of Mother’s chosen you still have a big bright target on your ass,” Carmilla shot back with a thin-lipped smile. Danny’s face turned an angry shade of red

“So what do we do about it?” interjected Laura.

“We go to the Order and negotiate,” Carmilla replied evenly. “We explain the situation and try to arrange safe passage for Lawrence out of London.  And then we back off.”

Protests arose from all sides around Carmilla, Danny arguing that she’d made a promise to her friend at Scotland Yard, Kirsch supporting Danny, LaFontaine complaining that they’d be missing out on learning more about the technology the Order had at their disposal, and Laura scolding her for the mere idea of letting this interspecies gang warfare go unchecked. Only Perry seemed satisfied to remain quiet, though she had turned her attention back to the group.

Carmilla pinched the bridge of her nose before finally slapping a hand down on the table, shocking the others into silence. She threw Danny a dirty look before addressing the table.  “While the Ginger Giant is allowed to do any damn thing she pleases – including getting herself killed, again – let me stress that the Order is far more equipped to deal with vampires than we are.  This isn’t Silas, with a bunch of innocents on the chopping block or the end of the world at stake.  This is two powerful groups going at each other.  If we get in the middle of this, Lawrence isn’t the only one who’s likely to make the hitlist.” 

This argument seemed to mollify the group, at least for the short term. Carmilla thanked the stars for small victories.

“While Karnstein has a point, I think we need to consider that the Order isn’t the only group we need to worry about. If there’s a pack of blood-suckers looking to take over London, then I don’t think the vampire who slays her own kind or the former vamp who tossed over mommy dearest for a human are going to be too popular,” said Laf, giving Danny and Carmilla each a pointed look.  “I’d like to offer something up in the way of personal protection until this blows over or we flee the scene.”

They leaned over and retrieved a box from within the bag Kirsch had carried in. They popped the lid and began laying items out on the table.  Carmilla’s eyebrows rose higher and higher with each new object.  She picked up a can of what looked like Papa Hollis’s bear spray, but the label listed garlic, holy water and sanctified oil as a few of the ingredients.  “Were you planning on invading a vampire nest all by your lonesome, or is your social life really just this sad?”

“There’s nothing like a thorough education at Silas University to make one consider the importance of adequate vampire deterrence,” defended Laf as they continued to produce more weapons. Perry sighed heavily as she joined the group, as if this was a discussion that had taken place more than once before.

Laura gingerly lifted a handgun from the table, pinching the barrel between two fingers. Her face was a mix of fascination and horror. “How did you even get these on the plane, let alone through customs?”

“Don’t ask,” replied Laf seriously.

Laura opened her mouth to undoubtedly do just that, when Perry shook her head gravely. “Really Laura, don’t ask.  You’re better off not knowing.”

Danny grabbed up another handgun, hefting it as if testing its weight. “So what’s the deal with these anyway?  Pretty sure this thing’s not going to do much against a vampire.”

Laf set down a tray of neatly aligned bullets with a smug look. “It’s not the guns, it’s what’s in them.”

Danny plucked up one of the bullets before dropping it with a hiss. Smoke wafted off her fingertips, and she snarled.

“Oh, sorry, I should have warned you. Those bullets are ironwood in a sliver casing that have then been dipped in holy water and blessed by a priest,” explained Laf sheepishly.  “I have preloaded clips if you want.”

Sucking her fingers, Danny managed to look both mildly impressed and annoyed at the same time. Carmilla snickered at the sight.  Laura on the other hand hastily put her gun down, grimacing.  She picked up a small gray device with two buttons on it, turning it over in her palm.  “What’s this?”

“That,” said Laf with a grin, “is a design based on your dad’s sonic blaster. I’ve modified it so that it only emits sound in the vampire range of hearing, totally harmless to humans.  Here, let me show you…”

“Oh, hell no,” blurted out Danny, snatching it from Laf’s hand before the scientist could give a demonstration. “I appreciate the need to equip ourselves against a potential vampire threat, but let’s not field test everything on me first, OK?”

Carmilla had to stifle a laugh. Danny sent her a full blown glare, growling.  “You are enjoying this way too much.”

“Hey, a girl’s got to get her kicks somehow,” Carmilla tossed back.

Pretty soon the various weapons were divided up among the group. Laura gravitated toward the spray claiming that it felt somehow nostalgic.  Danny took one of the handguns, despite her previous reaction to the bullets, citing her expert marksmanship developed during her days as a Summer.  Vampire or not, she was going to take any edge she could get.  Kirsch ended up with the sonic blaster, while Laf kept a couple of what looked suspiciously like grenades for themselves.    Strangely, Perry steadfastly refused to use anything.  Carmilla scooped up the remaining handgun.  When Laura gave her a strange look, Carmilla just gave her a half smile.

“It’s not as elegant as a stake, or as impressive as a soul-sucking sword, but I’m a modern girl now, and I’ll take what I can get,” she said, by way of explanation. She didn’t mention that the idea of going up against a vampire in her current mortal state left her stomach twisted in knots.  The heavy unease she’d been feeling since Laura and she had moved to London seemed to thicken and condense into something solid.  She thought she might choke on it.

***

It was well past midnight by the time they’d broken up their little team meeting with an agreement to resume looking for the Order in the morning, and Carmilla was aching for her bed. She and Laura had dragged out every spare blanket, pillow and yoga mat they could find, clearly under-prepared to host four unexpected guests in their one bedroom apartment.  She finished laying down the last of the bedding in the living room while the others cycled through the bathroom and the kitchen trying to get ready for bed without tripping over one another.  Lawrence at least had had the good sense to escape to the roof with a fresh blood bag and a promise not to go far.  Carmilla snorted at the disaster area around her.  As Laura was quick to remind her, she certainly wasn’t one to be bothered by a little mess, but even she had to admit that living room looked like the spawn of an unfortunate marriage between an impromptu barracks and a modern art exhibit had vomited onto the floor.  Well, there was nothing to be done about it now.  She headed for the hall, hoping to make a quick escape to her bedroom.

She’d barely made it to the archway when she spotted Perry staring at the sigils around the front door. Perry hadn’t noticed her and Carmilla paused, silently observing the redhead. What was Suzy Homemaker up to? As Carmilla watched, Perry reached into her pocket and withdrew a piece of charcoal, then produced a clean handkerchief from another pocket. Before Carmilla could protest, she used the hankie to erase one of the sigils. With sure motions, she replaced it with another symbol using the charcoal and gave a sharp approving nod. Carmilla blinked in surprise. If Carmilla’s patchy knowledge of spellwork served her right, Perry had just strengthened the protections over the apartment, but how had little Miss Perfectly Normal known that in the first place? Before Perry could turn, Carmilla slipped quietly down the hall. She decided she’d confront the ginger soon enough, but since Perry’s intent seemed benign she’d let it go for now. Tonight she just wanted to curl up and fall asleep against Laura’s side.


	5. In which things are not as they seem

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Laura said, staring at the small run down theater with the tremendously cheesy, faded posters of a generic looking magician, complete with moustache, tuxedo, white-tipped wand and rabbit in the top hat. “ _This_ is the headquarters for the mighty and powerful order of wizards tasked with guarding London from demonic and undead horrors?  Color me underwhelmed.”

“Its appearance is a bit less impressive than I was hoping for,” Perry concurred. LaFontaine tilted their head in thoughtfulness.

Carmilla brushed past them and examined the building for a moment before pointing to a small imprint on one of the bricks near the door. “This is it, buttercup.” 

Laura stepped closer to see what Carmilla was pointing out. Impressed in the brick was an oak and a ram.  Guess this really was it, though Laura retained her doubts.  It had taken a day and a half to track down this shabby little place just outside of Soho, and ultimately it was Danny who’d scored the lead by working a couple of her contacts.  Laura was pretty sure Carmilla was still smarting over that one.  With everyone packed into the flat like sardines, tensions between Danny and Carmilla had reached an excruciating high, and Laura had eventually banned them from being in the same room for longer than two minutes at any given time.  When the two had tried arguing with her over it, Laf, Perry and even Kirsch had unanimously supported Laura’s decree.

What Laura couldn’t understand was why the two were metaphorically at each other’s throats in the first place. Sure, they hadn’t ever really gotten along before, but their last parting had been almost civil, what with Carmilla basically telling Danny to watch out for herself. Plus, the current tiffs seemed to start over nothing at all. Laura promised herself that she’d investigate further when she finally got the opportunity.  

Regardless of the infighting, they'd found the location they needed and everyone had practically scrambled over each other for the opportunity to leave the apartment. Eventually they sorted out that Danny should stay behind with Kirsch, since it was a) daylight and b) Danny was the Order’s target, and Kirsch was apparently just part of the matching set.  Carmilla, on the other hand, had the most knowledge of the Order and therefore was needed to lead the negotiations, Laf was itching to get a glimpse at any tech the Order might have cooking up, while Laura and Perry just wanted out of the house.  Plus, Laura’s curiosity was in high gear, and she feared her food poisoning excuse was starting to wear thin at work, so she wanted to make the most of her freedom before being forced to return to her internship. (She wondered when she had started thinking of it as being forced.)

“Actually, if I was trying to hide a secretive magical organization, this place would be the perfect cover,” commented Laf. “It’s not like anyone would expect to find real magic at a place like this.”

Laura couldn’t help but see the sense in that. She grabbed the door handle and motioned to the dim interior with a flourish of her arm.  “Well, shall we enter the Mysterious Palace of Magical Wonders?”

Carm led the way, hitching her thumbs through the straps of her backpack, followed closely by Laf and Perry. Laura took up the rear, letting her eyes adjust to the low lighting.  The lobby of the theater looked nearly as worn as the exterior, with threadbare carpeting and fixtures that looked like they were straight out of the 80’s.  An empty ticket booth was on their right, while an unlit snack bar lay to the left.  The place smelled of dust and some overly-floral cleaning product that made Laura’s nose twitch.  The lobby ended with three sets of double-doors, no doubt leading to the main theater, and two flights of stairs on either side, one leading down and the other up.

A scrawny young man with brown curly hair, a splotchy complexion, overly large spectacles and an ill-fitting shirt and tie tromped heavily down the last couple of stairs of the ascending stairwell. He carried a wooden box.  The contents clinked together with each step, as if the box was full of glass.  He stopped sharply when he caught sight of them, seemingly astonished to find anyone in the lobby.  Shifting the box to one hand, he adjusted his glasses with the other and cleared his throat before approaching them.

“Hello there. I’m very sorry, but the theater is closed today.  Our regular shows start up again tomorrow if you’d like to return then.  I do apologize for any inconvenience,” he said meekly. 

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not here for the show then,” replied Carmilla smoothly, sliding the backpack off her shoulders and undoing the clasps. Laura, Laf and Perry hung back, letting Carmilla take the lead for now.

The man squinted at her in confusion. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, you see…” Carmilla motioned to the man expectantly. 

He fidgeted a little and said, “Clive.  Clive Edwards.”

“You see, Clive, we’re here to see the Order,” explained Carmilla smoothly, her voice quiet but holding just a hint of steel. Laura had to admit, vampire or not, Carmilla could crank up the intimidation when she wanted to.  Clive shifted uncomfortably.  Laura almost felt sorry for the man – his nervousness was palpable.

“I- I think you- you might be mistaken,” stuttered Clive. His lying was so bad that Laura was pretty sure only a growing nose could make it more obvious.  Was this guy really the Order’s idea of a guard, or did they just end up lucking out by finding the one person with a spine made of pudding?

“So, is this a mistake?” demanded Carmilla, pulling the ghost carrier out of her pack with a flourish, the Order’s stamp clear even in the low light. (Ghost carrier, like it contained some cuddly post-mortal pet.  Ghost pod? Magical ghost Tupperware?  Laura was having difficulty coming up with a name that seemed sufficiently threatening to describe an object intended for the transport and delivery of murderous spirits.  She was hoping Laf would come up with a good acronym soon.)

“Oh dear,” Clive murmured faintly.

“Indeed. I think it’s time you take us to your leaders,” said Carmilla, giving him a thin smile.

“I can’t,” the young man blurted out. Carmilla’s smile dropped and she raised a sharp eyebrow.  He quailed.  “No, really I can’t.  It’s not possible.”

Suddenly Carmilla lunged forward and grabbed the guy by the tie, yanking him forward. He yelped and the box in his hands wobbled precariously.

“You listen to me, spineless wonder. You better get whoever’s in charge out here now, before I decorate the lobby a delightful shade of red, got me?” Carmilla growled, raising the enchanted cylinder menacingly.

And now that the subtle intimidation had escalated to overt violence in less than 5.2 seconds flat, Laura intervened. She grabbed Carmilla’s forearm, dragging her away from the quivering Clive, who’d gone three shades whiter than Casper.  “Carm, we’re here to negotiate, not beat anyone to a bloody pulp.  I’m not sure the threat of imminent bodily harm is exactly the best opening round when trying to cut a deal with a bunch of powerful wizards.”

“He doesn’t look so powerful to me,” sniffed Carmilla.

“So not the point,” snapped Laura, giving Carmilla her best glare.

While Laura wrangled Carmilla away from Clive, Perry approached the young man. He jumped when she placed a soothing hand on his arm, but didn’t move.  His eyes tracked Carmilla’s movements with a good bit of fear.

Perry spoke in a gentle voice, her eyes soft and sympathetic. “Look.  I’m sorry for my friend’s, ah, assertive disposition, but you see, we really do need to talk to someone from the Order who can help us.  There’s been a bit of a…mix up…and we need to see someone right away.”

Clive’s wide eyes finally swung to Perry and a little color seemed to come back into his cheeks. He gave her a pleading look.  “I do wish I could help you, it’s that I’m not allowed to-“

“Good gods, Clive, what in the bloody hell is taking so long with those herb bottles!” a voice bellowed, causing everyone in the lobby to pivot as one toward the source. A stocky man, in every way Clive’s opposite, threw open one of the sets of double doors.  Clive flinched as the swarthy, square-jawed man glowered in his general direction.  “What’s going on here, Edwards?”

“Well…you see, um, sir…these ladies…” Carmilla and Laf both snorted at that, for entirely different reasons.  Clive turned an embarrassed shade of pink as he continued to stumble over his words.  “They, well, they’re here for…well…”

“Spit it out, man!”

Carmilla rescued him, no doubt out of a sense of expediency rather than any pity she might feel for Clive. She held up the ghost carrier and said, “We’re looking for whoever left this in my friend’s kitchen.”

“And what makes you think that whoever invented that shiny bauble is here?” asked the man with a slight frown.

“It bears the mark of the Order of Nemetona, and so does this building,” answered Laura. The man changed his focus from Carmilla to her.  He looked as if she were nothing but a minor nuisance.  Laura bristled.

“I see,” replied the man, studying them with narrowed eyes. He looked at Clive again, who shrank under his stare, and then glanced back to the group.  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you you’ve come to the wrong place?”

“No,” replied Carmilla evenly, holding the man’s gaze with a challenge in her own.

The man grimaced. “Very well.  It’s not like you could get through the guards without permission anyway, so come along.  My name is Stanley Worthington.  You may call me Mr. Worthington or Master Worthington.”

Carmilla snorted at his pompous introduction, a flicker of amusement crossed Laf’s features and even Laura couldn’t help a small eye roll. Perry seemed to be assessing him with shrewd eyes.  Mr. Worthington turned on his heel and headed back the way he had come.  Laura paused, her excitement momentarily tempered with a bit of caution.  This was exactly what they’d all come here for, but now that they were entering the lion’s den so to speak, she wondered if this was their best plan – after all what did they know about these wizards really?  And it wasn’t like their plans tended to work out all that well anyway.  But what other options did they have? 

Noticing her hesitation, Carmilla gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and a small smile, and Laura nodded back. She was the first to follow, Carmilla and the two red-heads close behind, while Clive bumbled at the back.  Laura took in the semi-darkened theater as they walked down the main aisle toward the stage.  She was a bit disappointed.  It all looked so…normal.

“I take it Clive is not one of the guards?” Laura said as she caught up with the Worthington.

It was the wizard’s turn to snort in derision. “Good lord, no.  That fool boy couldn’t find his own pants with both hands if they were stapled to his forehead and glowed in the dark.”

Laura threw a glance over her shoulder, and watched as Clive colored, clearly having heard Worthington’s caustic remark. The older man continued, “I’m assuming since you know our name, you have some sense of what we do here?”

Laura nodded. “You’re a group of wizards.”

“A bit of an over-simplification, but accurate enough. Well, Clive here has been an apprentice for the last five years, and at the rate he’s going he’ll be one for the next fifteen as well.  Utterly hopeless.”

Laura couldn’t help but feel for Clive. She’d known Worthington for all of thirty seconds and already his off-handed cruelty and inflated ego set her teeth on edge.  Apparently she wasn’t the only one, because Carmilla appeared on his other side and threw and arm around his shoulder.  She gave him a sickly sweet smile.

“So Stan,” Carmilla drawled. Laura couldn’t help her own smirk as the puffed-up codfish’s features darkened at Carm’s casual familiarity and pointed use of his first name.  “How long do you think it will be before we can talk to the Council?”

Ah, yes, the mysterious Council of Nine. Over the day and a half spent searching for this place, Carmilla had briefed their intrepid band on what few sketchy details she could recall about the Order.  One of those tidbits was that the Order was governed by a council made up of nine high wizards, selected from among their brethren.  Carmilla hadn’t known why they were selected or what made them high wizards.  As she put it ‘We didn’t care who ran the place, as long as Mother got her book.  For all we knew the high wizards got on the Council by winning an elaborate game of Go Fish or Rock-Paper-Scissors.’  Though they’d previously agreed to keep what they knew to themselves, the half-surprised, half-irked look on Worthington’s face was totally worth giving something away.  Laura smiled wider at the wink Carmilla threw her way.

“If you get that far, the Council will meet with you when they are ready,” replied Worthington tightly.

“Ah, so I take it you’re not on the Council then,” Carmilla crooned, turning the screw just a little more. 

Worthington’s lips pursed and his features darkened just a little more. His refusal to speak was answer enough.  He pulled up just short of the stage and Laura wondered what was going to happen next as he closed his eyes.  Then with a wave of his hand he muttered a short incantation in a language Laura didn’t recognize and glowing runes appeared across the front edge of the stage for a brief moment.  The next moment there was a staircase leading down under the stage.  It didn’t appear.  There was no shimmering as an illusion faded to reveal it.  It was just there.  If Laura hadn’t been standing in front of the solid looking stage front a second before, she would have said that the stairs were always there.  Laura shook her head to try and free it of the disconcerting feeling of both realities existing at once.

“Follow me,” Worthington practically growled. Though irritating him had been satisfying, Laura hoped that the other wizards would be more reasonable.  Two wizards down (or one wizard and one wizard-in-training as it were) and they’d managed to aggravate one and terrify the other.  It was not a good basis for cutting a deal.

They were forced to go single file behind the wizard, Carmilla first and Laura a close second. She brushed the small of Carm’s back with her fingers, a light reassuring touch, though Laura didn’t know who she was reassuring, herself or her girlfriend.  The stairs and walls were old gray stone, the passageway lit by small orbs floating free in space, and Laura was finally feeling that this might actually be the right place.  Behind her, Perry smacked Laf’s hand and sent them a cross look as they reached out to touch one of the orbs.  The box in Clive’s arms rattled as he came last.

The stairs opened up into a dim hall. Though slightly wider than the stairway, it still felt slightly claustrophobic despite the much taller ceilings. A moment later, Laura realized why as she glanced up and was met with a couple dozen pairs of stone eyes.  Gargoyles leered down at her from many ledges, one stacked over another until they disappeared into the shadows above, all stone claws and sharp teeth and rock muscles poised to pounce.  She swallowed.

“Hey guys, has anyone else noticed that those creepy gargoyles are tracking our movements?” asked Laf, a note of concern and fascination creeping into their voice.

And indeed they were. Laura fixed her sights on one gargoyle in particular, a feathered monstrosity that looked like an eagle and a penguin had a really, really ugly baby.  As she moved its head swiveled, almost so subtly that it didn’t seem to move at all, but it was always looking directly at her.

“That is very disconcerting,” commented Perry, twisting her fingers together.

“I wonder what they’re made of,” pondered Laf out loud, their steps slowing. The scientist was straining up on the tips of their toes to get a better look.

“And I’m sure that you’d be more than happy to collect samples, but right now I think we should focus on not getting attacked by the mythological guard dogs,” replied Perry, prodding Laf in the back. Laura couldn’t agree more.

They exited the hall of stone horrors into a brightly lit chamber that looked less mystical and more clinical, like some quarantine unit out of a sci-fi movie. Worthington swung around to face them.

“You four stay here. Edwards, you’re with me.  This will just take a moment,” the wizard said tersely.  Before they could protest, he strode from the room, Clive scuttling behind him.  Pressure doors slid shut with a faint woosh on both ends of the room, sealing them in.

“That’s not good,” muttered Carmilla. She backed up, blindly reaching for Laura with one hand, the other gripping the strap of her pack with white knuckles.

Suddenly the room flared brighter, and Laura shielded her eyes from the light. Sprinklers in the ceiling came on, dousing them in a matter of seconds.  Perry gave out a little yelp of surprise and Laf practically tackled her, shielding Perry’s head with their body.  Laura gasped and clung to Carmilla, but nothing more seemed to happen other than a very cold and thorough soaking.  The sprinklers cut off.   After a few seconds when she realized that her skin was not melting from acid and they were not all being turned into toads, Laura checked the rest of the group. 

Carmilla looked like a grumpy, half-drowned cat, her mouth in a tight line and her eyes blazing with indignation. Perry straightened up, gently reassuring Laf that she was very much OK.  The look on Laf’s face said they didn’t believe it.  Laura shivered, her blazer not doing much to warm her now.  The doors reopened and Worthington appeared in front of them with a smug expression.

“What the holy hell was that?!” demanded Carmilla, taking a threatening step forward.

“Holy indeed. Standard vampire precautions,” replied Worthington with a tone that suggested he was just a little disappointed that none of them had turned out to be vampires.  “A burst of artificial sunlight and a good dose of holy water to keep the undead out.  I’m sure you understand.”

Despite the fact that she was pretty sure her lips were starting to turn blue, Laura found it hard to argue with that, given what she already knew about the deaths within the Order. But still, a little warning would have been nice.  Then again, that would probably defeat the purpose of the safeguards.  Regardless, she was doubly glad that they’d left Danny behind. 

“Well, it seems to me that the rain shower was a bit much,” said Perry testily, wringing out her soaked curls. “A good thing to have in case of an actual attack, but the sunlight would have been enough to tell if any of us were vampires.”

“I guess that thought just didn’t occur to me. Please do accept my apologies.”  Worthington gave them a broad, cold smile, his tone dripping with insincerity.  Laura gripped Carm’s arm harder when it looked as if the ex-vampire might take a swing at Worthington.

Laura tucked her head against Carmilla’s shoulder and whispered low enough that only she could hear, “I know the guy’s a bigger ass than Draco Malfoy, but let’s not get ourselves thrown out or worse before we can finish what we came here for.”

It took a moment, but finally Laura felt the tension ease out of Carmilla’s muscles. The dark-haired woman sighed.  “Fine. Lead the way, pop tart.”

Still damp and good deal more sullen than they’d been a few minutes ago, their little group followed Worthington once again. Even Laf was shooting baleful glances at the wizard’s backside as they swiped futilely at the water droplets clouding the lens of their mechanized eye with their equally wet shirttail.  Clive seemed to have disappeared altogether. 

Once out of the vampire deterrent room, they crossed through another long narrow hall, thankfully free of any other unpleasant surprises, and entered a broad, warmly lit hall with a high cathedral ceiling. The light seemed to emanate from the sandstone walls themselves, as there was not a torch, electric light, or magical glowing ball in sight.  Beneath their feet golden runes spun out in a spiral, and as Laura watched the sigils shifted into a series of interlocking circles, only to change again into an elaborate fractal pattern.  Laf and Perry both stopped in wonder and even Carmilla seemed impressed.  Glancing around, Laura noticed that the runes were everywhere, gliding up the walls and crossing the ceiling never staying still for more than a moment.  It was almost enough to make Laura dizzy if she looked too hard. 

The one fixed point was an intricate mural along one wall depicting – of course, what else – an oak and ram. But it was the most life-like painting Laura had ever seen, the leaves crisp and green, the ram’s coat looking shaggy and soft, almost inviting touch.  Laura peered farther down the hall.  There were many doors and archways, but there were no signs of people anywhere.  It felt wrong, like a place this large should be bustling with activity.  The hall itself seemed muffled somehow, as if someone had taken reality and turned the volume down just a bit.  The dullness, the lack of life left Laura feeling a bit uneasy.

Suddenly, a swishing swarm of something grazed Laura’s ear and whipped up strands of her hair. She spun in alarm in time to see a flock of tiny pegasi dart past and zip around a corner.  Her fright melted into joy at the sight, and she let out a delighted laugh.  She’d almost forgotten how much fun magical creatures could be when they weren’t trying to eat her or lay eggs on her. Carmilla gave her a warm smile.

“Bloody things escaped again,” muttered Worthington darkly. “Bloody Billings and his winged vermin.”

Laura gave him a sharp look. Was this man terminally incapable of saying one nice thing?  Before she had the chance to comment the wizard waved his hand again.  Up ahead, two of the doors slid together, and then they twisted themselves up and popped in a burst of brilliant sparks, leaving behind an arched opening.  Inside looked to be a cozy lounge, with over-stuffed chairs and footstools, tables stacked with snack cakes and a blazing fireplace on the far wall.

“Ah, here we are. You four can wait in here while I speak with my colleagues,” Worthington said, gesturing to the room.  As tempting as the lounge looked, Laura hesitated.  Out of the corner of her eye she could see Carmilla, Perry and Laf do the same.

“And how do we know you won’t just wall us in and forget about us once we’re in there?” she said suspiciously.

“As appealing as that sounds,” sneered Worthington, “I believe the Council will be interested in you. Beside if I wanted to get rid of you it would have been much simpler to just let the gargoyles eat you.”

“That’s delightfully reassuring,” muttered Carmilla.

“Fine, stand out here in the hall or rest in there, it makes no difference to me. Just stay put,” snapped the wizard.  With that he stormed off.

Laura watched him slam through one of the doors farther down the hall before turning back to the group. She eyed the lounge warily, then glanced back to her friends.  Carmilla raised a questioning brow and Laf shrugged their shoulders.

Finally Carmilla spoke up, “Well, I for one take Mr. Tightly Wound’s lack of give a damn as a sign that the goodies aren’t cursed, and I’m freezing.”

She slouched over to the fireplace, holding her hands out in front of her to warm them. Perry followed, perusing the plates of baked goods.

“These do appear to be homemade,” the red-head commented approvingly.

“Um, guys, didn’t we already learn our lesson about accepting baked goods from strangers during the whole Wicked Witch of the North Pole thing?” replied Laura.

“I’m not saying we should eat them,” countered Perry with just a little sharpness, “just pointing out that it’s nice that someone appreciates quality, instead of that generic store bought stuff everyone seems to eat nowadays.”

“And you don’t think it’s the tiniest bit suspicious that he just left us here alone, where we could just wander off into gods know what trouble? You’d think they’d have better safeguards than that.  What if they’re watching us?”  Laura carried on.  She couldn’t quite understand how her friends could be so blasé about all of this.

“Actually, I’m guessing they’re doing just that,” remarked Laf as they threw themselves down in one of the plush chairs with a wet squelch and a satisfied sigh. “It wouldn’t do much good to have the Muggles roaming the magical fortress, now would it?”

“Look, Laura, I get why you’re nervous, but we pretty much signed up for the ‘at their mercy’ gig when we decided to come down here. I’m not saying I’m happy about it, but I also don’t think they designed this place,” Carmilla waved her arm around the room, “as some well appointed chamber of doom, complete with soft cushions and comfy chairs.  Besides the last time I dealt with the Order, they were pretty upfront, and that’s when I was all…”  She grasped for the right words without just coming out and saying what everyone was thinking.

“Fifty shades of Drusilla? Without the crazies…or at least fewer crazies.” Laura supplied.

Carmilla grimaced at the description, but nodded. “Yeah, that.  The point being they were a decently hospitable bunch. 

As if proving her point, Clive suddenly popped up in the entryway, carrying a tray of steaming teacups in one hand and a stack of towels in the other. He hurried in with a conciliatory smile.   “I do so apologize for the inconvenience with the vampire screening room.  Master Worthington’s enthusiasm for protocol is admirable, but perhaps…er…a little zealous in this case.  I hope you won’t hold it against us.”

“Certainly not against you in any case, thank you,” replied Perry, politely taking up one of the teacups and a towel. She smiled warmly at Clive, but Laura couldn’t help notice that she made no move to drink.  If Clive noticed, he made no sign, not even when Carmilla and Laf were less circumspect with their hesitation.  Laf sniffed their cup suspiciously and Carmilla took her cup with a salute and a half smile before promptly placing it on the mantle.  The towels got a much better reception, and after Clive withdrew Laura finally allowed herself to relax a fraction. She hung her blazer near the fire and set about toweling up as much water as she could.

For about three minutes, Laura could have believed that everything was going to turn out just fine. They’d sit and discuss their business with some nice wizards who all looked suspiciously like Dumbledore and everyone would be reasonable and there would be tea and biscuits that you could actually trust not to be enchanted.  Cool heads would prevail and everyone would come to an easy accord over what was clearly a misunderstanding.  That version of world actually looked possible for the few quiet minutes she spent soaking up the warmth of the crackling fire as they waited.

Unfortunately the appearance of three men in the entryway - all armed with crossbows – promptly burst that bubble. Behind them a gloating Worthington gave them all a dark smile.

His voice crackled with triumphant menace as he proclaimed, “I don’t know how you got past our safeguards, but did you really think you could fool the Order of Nemetona – Mircalla Karnstein!”

Laura jumped in front of Carmilla without even thinking. It wasn’t until she reassessed the three very sharp arrows now pointed at her chest that her brain coughed up a single thought.

How in the name of Kayless were they going to get out of this one?

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, what have I done! I've started a multi-chapter fic after barely writing a thing in a year. Usually I have these things two-thirds written before I even post the first chapter, but not this time. *laughs maniacally, er, hysterically* This is going to be one wild experiment. Expect new chapters roughly every two weeks, but don't be surprised if some take a little longer. My job demands things of me. So many things...
> 
> Tell me what you think. Feedback, even negative, keeps me motivated.


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